Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Germany and Austria, Volume VII, Part 1

396.1/12–953

No. 313
The Secretary of State to Foreign Secretary Eden¹

secret

Washington, December 9, 1953.

In connection with our desire to complete preparations for proposed 4-Power conference in Berlin, it occurs to me that we might, even before our experts meet in Paris on December 16,² seek further to explore security declaration question.

In discussing this problem at our final meeting in Bermuda on December 7,³ I indicated that, despite my doubts about UK–French draft declaration⁴ and particularly its acceptability to Adenauer, I was perfectly willing to present this draft to him provided we made it clear that he was under no pressure to accept this specific formulation. If Adenauer should prove willing to accept it, I would be prepared to do likewise, so that we could firm up our position on this matter to which you attach such importance. If on other hand Adenauer should not accept this language or this type of formulation, we would then develop US draft together with any comments or suggestions Adenauer might give us as tripartite position.

If you are agreeable to this procedure, I would suggest we instruct our HICOMers to put this matter to Chancellor on urgent basis, explaining our general conclusions re preferability of unilateral security declaration (as against bilateral or multilateral pact) and giving him present UK–French draft, not as such, but as possible draft we three have worked out together and on which we would appreciate his frank views. We would like to have Adenauer’s views by December 14.

Such procedure, including Adenauer’s reaction and comments, should help us expedite solution of this problem when our experts meet in Paris December 16.⁵

Dulles

1. Transmitted to London in telegram 3046; the same message was transmitted to Paris for delivery to Bidault and repeated to HICOG Bonn.
2. The Tripartite Working Group was scheduled to resume its work on Dec. 16 at Paris.
3. For a record of the final meeting at the Bermuda Conference, see vol. v, Part 2, p. 1834.
4. Infra.
5. On Dec. 10 the British agreed to this procedure. The following day, the Embassy in Paris cabled that Bidault also concurred and since Adenauer was in Paris the draft security declaration would be shown to him on that day. (Telegram 1743 to London, Dec. 10, 396.1/12–1053, and telegram 2245 from Paris, Dec. 11, 396.1 BE/12–1153) The Chancellor’s preliminary reaction to the draft was described as “not unfavorable” by the Embassy in Paris and while the commitments on Germany would produce stress, Adenauer commented that that “did not worry him”. (Telegram 2270 from Paris, Dec. 12, 396.1 BE/12–1253)